UCSD to screen film about Iran's denial of higher education to members of the Bahá´í faith

A free screening of the 30-minute documentary “Education Under Fire” will be at 5 p.m. Friday, March 9 in UC San Diego’s Price Center Theater, 9500 Gilman Drive.

The documentary tells the story of the Bahá´í Institute for Higher Education” (BIHE) which was established in 1987 to give Bahá´í students access to higher education — a right that was being denied by the Iranian government.

The screening will be followed by a 45-minute panel discussion involving BIHE graduates who are now studying or working in San Diego.

“Education Under Fire”, which was produced by Single Arrow Productions and co-sponsored by Amnesty International, documents the ongoing and systematic persecution suffered by members of the Bahá´í faith in Iran, and the inspiring story of how BIHE was formed to give young Bahá´ís their only chance for a university-level education.

The story of BIHE, referred to by the

New York Times

as “an elaborate act of communal self-preservation,” is told by academics, BIHE professors and students — several of whose parents had been imprisoned or executed. As recently as May 2011, the government launched a coordinated attack against BIHE, raiding dozens of homes, confiscating computers and materials and detaining a number of the institution’s professors and administrators, some of whom continue to languish in prison without formal charges being levied.